Sunday, December 21, 2008

(Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company has permitted Book World to reprint "Journey of the Magi" by T.S. Eliot, but only in print; as the Eliot Estate does not permit Internet or electronic use of the poem. Please find and enjoy the piece in our newspaper.)

Oakland, CA — The Before Columbus Foundation announces the Winners of the Twenty-Eighth Annual AMERICAN BOOK AWARDS. The 2008 American Book Award winners will be formally recognized on Sunday, December 28th at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way in Berkeley, CA. The awards will take place from 4 p.m. – 6:30 p.m.

Authors attending will read selections from their works and sign copies of their award-winning books. A reception and book signing will take place following the ceremony. This event is free to the public. For more information, call (510) 681-5652.

California Poet Laureate (2005-2008) Al Young will host the event. Al Young was appointed by Governor Schwarzenegger, who has said of Mr. Young: “Al Young is a poet, an educator and a man with a passion for the arts. His remarkable talent and sense of mission to bring poetry into the lives of Californians is an inspiration.”

The American Book Awards were created to provide recognition for outstanding literary achievement from the entire spectrum of America’s diverse literary community. The purpose of the awards is to recognize literary excellence without limitations or restrictions. There are no categories, no nominees, and therefore no losers. The award winners range from well-known and established writers to under-recognized authors and first works. There are no quotas for diversity, the winners list simply reflects it as a natural process. The Before Columbus Foundation views American culture as inclusive and has always considered the term “multicultural” to be not a description of various categories, groups, or “special interests,” but rather as the definition of all of American literature. The Awards are not bestowed by an industry organization, but rather are a writers’ award given by other writers.

Tuesday, December 09, 2008

I have long wished that there could be some press that would do for poetry what Dalkey Archive has done for modern and postmodern fiction. In rare moments, it occurs to Dalkey Archive to do that itself, witness their publication of C. S. Giscombe. The new book, Prairie Style, is out now, available at a nice discount from Dalkey by clicking here. For that matter, look into Cecil's earlier books, including Here.

And here is a prairie excerpt.

Afro-Prairie

Tempting for the voice to locate its noise, to speak of or from. Everybody wants to be the singer but here’s the continent.

Fielding the question, Do you like good music?

Open love. In a recurring dream about the prairie, a thin hedge–along some railroad embankment--in which there’s a gap to step through again and again, for me to step through, out onto the view itself. Not the literary ballad, articulated, but onto the continent.

Wednesday, December 03, 2008

I noted in this space back during the primaries that Obama was the only candidate heard to make education in the reading of poetry a part of his campaign speeches. He said, to be precise, that everybody should graduate having learned to read poetry.

One sign that he practices what he preaches -- Obama was recently spotted with a copy of Derek Walcott's Collected Poems.

One of the central figures of the great folk music revival, Odetta was nearly ubiquitous in my youth and continued to perform to enthusiastic audiences right through the rock era and beyond. She was a part of everyone's life and seemed to connect with musicians of all stripes. On one of the Odetta LPs in my collection, the bass player is Bill Lee, father of Spike Lee.

She had hoped to sing at Obama's inauguration. Just last year she appeared on stage in Washington singing "This Little Light of Mine."

Go to a copy of Bob Dylan's CHRONICLES to read what a powerful influence she was on his early work.

"I'm the mama and they're the children," Odetta once said of the Dylan generation. She could have said much the same for the Obama generation.